In my opinion, the only thing more fun to watch than two
robots fighting it out in a bulletproof arena is watching two
robots with a lot of animation
battle it out. So, I challenged
myself to build something that
would pack as many features as a
Swiss Army knife into one fun-to-watch robot that had a goal
weight of about 60 pounds. Well,
I succeeded! The name of this
robot is “Hot Stuff!”
It’s a quick, four wheel
drive machine with an arm that
can grab and then lift other
robots completely off the ground.
Since holding another robot in
the air hardly sounds scary, there
is also a flame thrower installed
at the end of the arm to torch
any robots that become
ensnared.

The first thing to do (after
buying several cases of Mt. Dew
— my official robot building fuel)
was to build two drive pods. I
found a four foot long scrap of
aluminum tube on eBay that was
three inches square and had a
quarter inch wall thickness —
perfect for housing the drive
parts! I clicked “Buy it now” and
“three to five days” later it was
sitting on my doorstep as
promised.